


laughing with a mouth of blood

by sylvianorth



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, M/M, Mating Rituals, Pre-Canon, Rescue, Spoilers, kraglin is not very nice to children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 09:16:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11780073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylvianorth/pseuds/sylvianorth
Summary: "I think I’ll keep you," Yondu purrs to Kraglin sometimes, and Kraglin thinks that’s fine because he’s never belonged anywhere or to anyone like Yondu, so he stays.





	laughing with a mouth of blood

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: This fic features Yondu and Kraglin punching and hitting each other. It's just a few brief mentions, but if that is something that triggers you, be warned! There is also a scene where Kraglin hits an eight-year-old Peter. It's not in extreme detail, but please be careful.
> 
> The idea of the Centaurian mating behavior (feeding by hand) is from jackfish's "provider" (http://archiveofourown.org/works/2275083) which is fantastic and which you should read immediately. The title comes from the St. Vincent song of the same name.

The knife is too big for Kraglin’s bony hand.

He holds it awkwardly, the handle too long for his palm. He catches a flash of his reflection in the blade, a glimpse of his face (outer corner of his right eye, cheek, a bit of nose) in the lone sliver of unbloodied metal.

He looks like shit but when doesn’t he?

He grimaces, wipes it off on the sleeve of his too-large jacket. If he had a choice, he’d cast the knife aside and wait for a better opportunity to present itself, but he doesn’t have a choice, and he never really did, so he slides it in his boot.

The body at his feet groans and he makes sure to deliver a kick to the head as he walks away, returning to the bustling street, melting into the crowd.

Just another street kid with a grubby face and bloodied knuckles.

No one looks twice.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

It’s funny, the things he remembers ( _the rare times when the rain would stop and he could see the sun, Vika’s laugh, the way his mother’s tired eyes seemed to brighten when she saw him_ ), the things he didn’t ( _where he’d left his spare pair of boots, the disapproving furrow of his father’s brow, his age when he lost his first tooth_ ) and the things he pushed away out of necessity ( _knives grating against bone, his mother’s eyes clouded over, a cavern full of ashes and dust_ ).

It’s funny what the mind clings to, Kraglin thinks, and he tells Yondu this when they’re wrapped around each other in bed. Yondu has one big hand resting on the side of Kraglin’s throat, thumb on his pulse.

“There was this freaky chick who lived near me when I was a pup. Never saw nothing like her ever. She had these lidless yellow eyes and her lips was all rotted and black and she had these big white fangs. Lived behind a pile of trash in an alley. She used to talk to me.”

He chuckles and Yondu huffs out a laugh, gold teeth glinting in the low light. His hand moves up to stroke Kraglin’s scalp and he drags his fingers softly down the skin, his nails tracing the scars there. He’s smiling at Kraglin, one of his private smiles, the small, fond ones, and Kraglin makes sure to store these moments, shining them up and tucking them away like precious jewels. He takes them out sometimes, blows the dust off and wipes off any grime and revisits them when he needs to. He likes these moments the best.

“Her name was Dru. She said I’d see the stars. See, ain’t no one where I grew up ever seen the stars like we do, y’know? Livin’ in the pits and the acid rain and all that. But she said I’d see ‘em. I always thought she was crazy.”

He remembered her foul, dead stench more vividly than he remembered the pain of being stabbed or shot in the gut for the first time and her greying thumbs on the sensitive underside of his wrists. _Oh, sweet child. Blood child. You think no one sees you. I see you, blood child. I see you, and you will see the stars_ , she’d croaked and he feels every hair on his body stand up again.

Yondu chuckles again, shaking his head. “Says a lot about you that you’re still shit scared of some dead old broad, you dumb goofy prick.”

Kraglin shoves him in the shoulder and Yondu roars with laughter at that. “You’re still a sensitive little pup, ain’t ya?” he says, grinning. He pulls Kraglin close, his hand on the back of his neck, holding him in place. Kraglin shivers and Yondu’s breath is hot against his face. Yondu bites at Kraglin’s lip, hard, and Kraglin tastes the sharp tang of metal and Yondu leans forward and licks it out, blue blood on a red tongue. “I’ll make sure you see all them damn stars, boy.”

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

This is how Yondu becomes Captain:

When he finds Kraglin on Xandar, he’s first lieutenant, and so he stays for the first two years of Kraglin’s life with the Ravagers.

An exiled princess hires them to take back her planet via an extremely bloody and dangerous coup and, while the mission is ultimately successful, they lose Captain Roth to a blaster shot in the neck, along with another three crew members.

Once aboard the ship, another coup happens within short order when three Ravagers, Yondu included, declare themselves the new captain.

Kraglin loses count of how many members of the opposition he ends up having to incapacitate or kill after six.

One such dissenter is Haal, who ends up with Kraglin’s knife in one eye at the exact moment the yaka arrow flies through the back of his skull and exits from the forehead, just shy of Kraglin's left ear. Kraglin can still hear Yondu’s surprised bark of laughter.

“Thought he was gonna get you, boy,” he’d crowed as Kraglin wiped the blood (a mix of his own, Haal’s, and countless others’) off his face and Kraglin laughed too. “Couldn’t let you just die. ‘Specially not because of some jumped up little shit like that.” He kicks Haal’s body aside, helps Kraglin to his feet, favors him with a wide, jagged smile.

“He didn’t stand a chance, _Cap’n_.”

Yondu put a hand on the back of Kraglin’s neck, right on his branding scar, and squeezed. “That’s my boy.”

 

 

-

 

 

“You gonna leave?” Yondu murmurs one night. His voice is thick with exhaustion and his eyes are heavy, but there’s a pointedness in his words, almost accusatory.

“Just laid down,” Kraglin responds with a grin, hoping that if he plays dumb, Yondu will stop talking and go to sleep. “’m all warm and cozy. Why would I get up?”

Yondu does not smile back. “I mean about the Ego shit. The kid. Stakar. All that. You gonna leave?”

Kraglin shakes his head. “Uh-uh.”

He can hear the mattress creak and shift as Yondu rolls onto his back, followed by a sigh and he stares up at the ceiling. “Wex left today,” he mutters, almost to himself.

That made three since they brought on Quill and eight since Stakar blackballed them. “Fuck him,” Kraglin says. “Fuck all of them. They didn’t do nothin’ to help them kids. Who gives a shit what they think? We’re better off without ‘em. You’ll see. We’ll go somewhere with contacts, get us a real good crew to make up the difference. Who gives a fuck about Wex and Quaroh and the others?” When Yondu doesn’t say anything, Kraglin lays a hand on his chest, feeling for his heartbeat. When he finds it, he lays his palm flat, spreads his fingers wide. “We can do better than them. And I ain’t leavin’. I promise.”

“You never did know when to quit, you stupid bastard,” Yondu grumbles, but he sounds terribly fond.

“No, sir, I never did,” Kraglin answers. _I belong to you_ , he does not say, but he knows Yondu hears it anyway, because he leans over, touching their foreheads together before burrowing deep under the covers.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

He’s heard that the first kill is the hardest.

That isn’t always true.

In Kraglin’s case, it’s probably the easiest, most likely because he hadn’t really meant to do it. In fact, he probably could have called it an accident but he felt so good after the first few blows that he just kept doing it and it’s hard to excuse anything when someone’s head is a caved in lump of brains and blood and broken bone.

It’s not as though he initiated it. Some off-worlder was trying to mug him and he fought back. It wasn’t his fault the poor jackass was so soft skulled.

He takes the coat because he’s cold and wet and, most importantly, because he can, and he puts the units he finds in the pocket in his boot and wipes his sore, tattered hands on the other guy’s pants. The man’s eyes are still open. His mouth is open too, forming an “o” in a silent scream, and Kraglin reaches down, shifts the head so its facing the wall instead. “Don’t look at me,” he mutters.

He laughs.

It’s a combination of nerves and adrenaline and the sheer absurdity of the situation, because of course killing is the only thing that comes easy to him ( _blood child_ ) and he’s probably going to have the NovaCorps breathing down his neck in a few moments, so he cleans up as well as he can and bolts. The laughter threatens to overtake him as he walks down the street and he gets more than a few sideways glances as he chokes out the strange clacking sound, which begins low in his chest before forcing its way painfully up his throat and out his mouth. He hasn’t laughed in ages and his body isn’t used to it and it hurts.

It’s been so long since he’s had something to laugh at and he’s scared and tired and he has bad dreams that night and wakes up shivering, his face wet.

In the end, few things are as accidentally easy as that first kill. Securing his spot in Yondu’s bed is one. Delivering a bunch of innocent kiddies to their deaths is another.

Causing a mutiny against his lover is another.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

“Are y’all fucking _stupid_?”

“Kraglin – ”

“Y’all knew what Ego was doing and you didn’t do _nothing_! Didn’t lift a single fucking finger!”

A low whistle. An arrow that Kraglin does not see because he is consumed in a white hot rage.

“And now y’all are tryin’ to claim the moral high ground? It’s too fuckin’ late for them kids, and it’s too fuckin’ late for that! Fuck you!”

The arrow pierces his arm and then his side and circles back to point at his throat. He yells, more in surprise than pain and drops to his knees. Stakar smirks.

 

 

-

 

 

 

Quill is a pain in the ass.

He’s too small and scrawny and _whiny_. The first thing he does when they see him is open his mouth and start bawling and panting and thrashing like a dying animal.

 _What’ve you got to be so scared of, kiddie? We’re saving your sorry hide_ , Kraglin had thought but when he went to grab the kid to take him to the med bay to get a translator implant, the brat kicked him in the shins and bit his hand and Kraglin wasn’t thinking when he smacked him so hard across the face so hard Quill’s nose gushed blood (he bled red, Kraglin had noticed absently) and he screamed louder.

Yondu’d decked Kraglin across the face for that and snarled, “You’re riling him up, idiot” and Kraglin spit out blood and didn’t see the arrow but he also didn’t bother to say anything in his defense and let Yondu and Skade wrangle the little shit themselves. Pree shakes her head at him as she checks the bite on his hand for infection and clicks her tongue behind her own razor-sharp teeth when she finds there’s nothing to worry about, bandaging him and sending him on his way.

He spends the next four night cycles in the common area with the rest of the crew, forgoing Yondu’s cabin and the next time he sees the captain, he’s got the stupid pink creature in tow, dragging him along, a big blue hand on a skinny little neck.

“This is Quill,” Yondu announces, pushing the kid towards Kraglin. “I’m leaving him with you for a bit. I need to deal with some shit with a contact planetside and I think it’s best to do it alone.” When Kraglin opens his mouth to protest, Yondu pulls back his coat to show the arrow and raises a warning brow, but Kraglin can read his face and posture, see the slumped shoulders and lines of exhaustion and _just do this_ in his eyes and he’s never been able to refuse him anything.

“Fine,” he mutters, setting down his data pad and looking at Quill, who’s staring around the bridge with large, wet eyes. He’s clutching something rectangular to his chest, with white-knuckled, trembling hands.

“I don’t want to be here,” Quill whispers. “I want my mom.”

Kraglin thinks of his own mother, her grey hair, her thin, frail body, and his lip curls a little. “Tough shit, you’re stuck here.”

“Where’s Yondu going?”

“Planetside.”

“What’s that mean?”

“He’s goin’ to a planet.”

“What planet?”

“Don’t concern you.”

“What are you doing?”

Kraglin crouches down, looks the kid dead in the eye. “Deciding if I’m gonna cook you first, or just eat you raw.”

That sends the kid into another fit of hysterics but Kraglin laughs until his belly is sore and he doesn’t even mind when Yondu gives him a black eye for it when he returns.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

It’s not that he really likes all the fighting and killing.

It’s just that that’s all he’s good at, and if it happens to be easy money, well.

He gets caught by a well-dressed local named Bohdan after stabbing a Kree for their expensive looking boots and credits but instead of him turning him over to the NovaCorps and sent to the Kyln, Bohdan offers him a job that ends up being an illegal ring where rich fucks pay to see poor schmucks kick the shit out of each other and they call it entertainment.

Bohdan watches as a group of bots hold him down and cut a brand into the back of his neck and he feels the blood trickling down his spine before the medbot cleans it up and wraps clean white bandages around it. The scar itches on humid planets and sometimes he finds himself absentmindedly tracing it with the pads of his fingers. He’s better fed than when he lived on the streets – a bowl of brown for each meal with some flavorless fried bread to dip it in and he has his own room in a heavily locked stone building. One room, a barred sliver for a window that’s too high up to see out, a sink and a toilet and a thin cot and blanket. When he’s not fighting, he’s locked in the room and spends most of his time scratching at the wall with his too-long nails.

Bohdan has the only key.

They give him a new pair of shoes and a new knife, one that fits his hand better.

Kraglin takes a few hard losses in the arena, losing part of a finger on his right hand, a piece of scalp and a chunk out of his left leg, but he’s a fast learner. He starts to read his opponent, anticipate their next move. He guts an A’askavariian when it refuses to surrender and the crowd screams. He hates the sound but he gets an extra bowl of brown so he tunes it out.

Everyone loves an underdog.

This is how Yondu finds him.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

An assignment goes awry (who would’ve guessed that the high priestess who looked like a delicate child could smuggle seven blasters under her robes?) and Kraglin ends up in the med bay. Yondu himself hauls him there, Kraglin bleeding all over his coat. Kraglin puts a white (too white) hand to the blue stain as an apology for ruining the garment and getting hurt and it comes back sticky and wet and he doesn’t think Yondu understands what he means. He’s so tired and his eyelids are so heavy and he wants to sleep but Yondu snaps, “Don’t you close your fuckin’ eyes on me, Obfonteri, or we’ll skip the med bay and go straight to me chuckin’ you out the airlock.”

One shot in the gut, a knife slipped under his collarbone, dragged across the side of his neck and over his left eyebrow, and he’s hacking up blood. Cerulean stains the rough white blankets that scratch his bare skin as Pree tears off his clothes with her sharp nails to get to his belly. He shivers. His head aches but his hands and face are numb. It’s funny and he thinks he’s laughing because more blood comes up and his entire body trembles. He feels like he does sometimes when he’s had too much moonshine – dizzy and weak and ill. Pree gives him something in an IV that makes everything sort of fuzzy around the edges and she holds him down until he sleeps.

He dreams of the fighting ring, of the way knives peeled strips of flesh from him, of Eret and his mother and her tired face, the other pups scrounging for food. He dreams of Yondu and his big hands and gold teeth and the way his laugh seemed to come straight from his belly. He dreams of the way acid rain felt when it hit his face and how warm Yondu was against his back and the first time he flew an M-ship. Dru and her foul stench and grey skin. Vika’s screams as she was hauled away (she never came back and he never knew why they took her). The first time he killed someone and blade scraping against bone. Sleeping in his solitary room with his barred window, huddled on his ratty cot, every nerve on end, going crazy with only his thoughts and memories and dreams to keep him company. The way Yondu grinned at him on raids, how his heart would race.

He doesn’t know how long he sleeps but between the dreams, he hears softly spoken words above him and sometimes he drifts back and opens his eyes. He sees vague shapes then – Pree hovering over him, machines and tools in her hands, every muscle in her long neck tensed and her sterile, medicinal scent staining the air around him. Tullk leaning against the bed. Horuz putting something on the table next to him. He’s only cognizant for a moment before he goes back under and dreams of touching the stars with his bare hands. He floats up behind them and blows out their lights and laughs and laughs.

He wakes again and sees Yondu sitting next to his bed. He’s looking hard at something on his data pad, like he’s deep in thought. The light glints off his gold earrings. Kraglin can barely keep his eyes open but he makes a pathetic mewling sound to try to get his attention. He’d be embarrassed if he could feel anything but pain and a stupid, radiant joy at seeing Yondu again.

“Thought you could die on me, did you, Obfonteri?” Yondu barks. “Pree gave you about fifty-fifty odds on surviving. She was sayin’ you was a lost cause. I almost spaced her for that. But I remember when you was still a little scrapper in that shithole on Xandar, killing folks for a living. And I bet on you then and you didn’t let me down, and I bet on you now and you didn’t let me down. But if you pull a stunt like this again, I’m throwin’ you out the airlock, whether you’re dead or alive.” Kraglin tries to smile but he can’t, his weak, sluggishly beating heart swelling all the same. Yondu swaggers over but Kraglin knows his captain inside and out, can see through the bluster and bravado, sees the slight hunch in his shoulders, the tightened spine that betray his concern. He crouches down next to Kraglin and Kraglin can see the sack and hot plate in his hands. Yondu opens the sack and holds up some dead furry thing, raises his eyebrows. “You’ve been out for a week now,” he begins as he starts to cut into the creature, and Kraglin wonders if Yondu cleared this with Pree. He can’t imagine she’d be thrilled with Yondu gutting a carcass on her floor, even if he is the captain. “Long enough us to do a quick job in the Mandahl system. Landed on one of them jungle planets and got this nice critter here.” He turns on the hot plate, waits a moment. “Now don’t go thinkin’ you’re special, boy, ‘cos you ain’t. I already ate one myself. But I thought you’d like this.” He tests the plate with his hand and spits on it. Kraglin can hear a slight sizzle, followed by a larger one when Yondu slaps a fresh cut piece of meat down. Kraglin closes his eyes, letting the smell wash over him, basking in Yondu’s presence.

“Open up, boy. Let’s get something in you that ain’t Pree’s protein sludge and electrolyte juice.” Yondu holds a chunk of meat over Kraglin’s face, cut tiny, and Kraglin doesn’t think twice before opening his mouth to take it straight from Yondu’s hand. It’s juicy and tender, nearly melting in his mouth. It hurts to swallow but he does it anyway and nods very slightly, his head still feeling heavy, like it’s drooping uselessly on his neck. “Thought you’d like that,” Yondu says approvingly. He cuts another thin strip, cooks it, feeds it to Kraglin, slips his fingers into Kraglin’s mouth to let him suck them clean. Kraglin swirls his tongue around the pad and notices the way Yondu’s pupils blow at that, the stutter in his breath when he murmurs, “You like that?” and Kraglin can just blink in the affirmative, wishing he could agree more enthusiastically. He thinks Yondu knows what he means, though, because Yondu is looking at him like he can't believe his eyes. Like Kraglin is something precious.

When they’re done eating, Yondu holds a bottle of water to Kraglin’s mouth, encouraging him to drink. “You better hurry up and heal, Obfonteri. My bed ain’t gonna warm itself and if you keep taking your time, I’m gonna find me a replacement.” Kraglin manages to turn his lips down at that in a mock pout and Yondu chuckles, wipes a few stray drops of water from Kraglin’s lips with his fingers. “I ain’t gonna promise that I can stay loyal to you when you’re all the way the hell out here. So, you’d best get fixed.” Kraglin does his best to look very serious and nod and Yondu leans in and kisses him hard, one hand laying across the curve of Kraglin’s jaw. When he breaks away, he rests their foreheads together.

Kraglin can tell he wants to say something but instead just brushes their lips together again and pulls away.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

“I need you to teach the kid to fight,” Yondu says to Kraglin once without any preamble.

“Thought you woulda separated us after I threatened to eat him,” Kraglin mutters, not looking up from the map he’s drawing.

Yondu actually chuckles. “Hell no. That was a tickler, that, once he got calmed down." Then he goes serious. “If we’re gonna have the kid with us, he’s gotta learn to fight. And you’re the best. I need you to do it, otherwise he’s gonna get got on his first raid. He’s gotta earn his keep.”

When Kraglin doesn’t respond, too busy pointedly ignoring Yondu and drawing his map, Yondu grabs his chin, forcing him to look him in the eye. “Krag,” he says, voice low. His mouth is hard and his eyes are big and serious. He doesn’t need to show the arrow.

And Kraglin nods.

In the end, Kraglin teaches Quill to fight hand to hand, fire a blaster and fly an M-ship. He takes him drinking and gambling and teaches him to play cards, shows him the best ways to palm and pocket items, laughs himself silly when the kid makes himself sick from Xandarian brew.

In the end, Kraglin gets a little bit fond of him.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Yondu’s hands are big and dry and rough and hot. He throws off more heat than Kraglin has ever known before, an aspect for which Kraglin is eternally grateful because all he’s ever known is cold and damp. At night, Yondu curls around him like the big cats Kraglin sometimes sees on the ‘net, the ones on jungle planets with big claws, and mouths the back of his neck, right on his scar before they drift off.

(“These are for every time I lost a fight,” Kraglin had said once, pointing at the black tattoos on his neck. “They didn’t want me forgetting. As if I could,” and he tapped the scar on his head with what remained of his maimed finger. “After they gave me the third one, I stopped feeling ‘em.”

Yondu took a swig from the bottle of vipermilk and put it back down. Peeled off his shirt. Twisted around and showed Kraglin an ugly white scar on his left shoulder blade. “This is mine,” he said. “First thing I did after Stakar freed me was put my thumbs in the eyes of the fucker who did that.” He’d laughed then, grinning around the mouth of the bottle and hauled Kraglin into his lap and gave him a sloppy wet kiss, hand drifting between Kraglin’s legs and making him gasp. “Sometimes I still dream about the sounds he made. Wish I coulda recorded them.”)

Yondu, Kraglin learns, loves to read. Yondu never admits, but Kraglin knows, that he learned after he was freed, and that he does it because he wasn’t allowed as a slave. Most everything Yondu does nowadays is based on what he wasn’t allowed to do under the Kree.

He likes history texts mostly, and the plays written by the ancient Shi’ars, the bloody ones about revenge that usually end with a pile of bodies and a river of blood. After they pick up Quill, Yondu reads a few Terran books to try to find common ground with the brat (but as Quill later bawls “what eight-year-old reads Emile Zola and Joan Didion?”). More than once, Kraglin has glanced over his shoulder and seem him reading about Centaurians and his home planet, face stern and impassive in his concentration, but Yondu never talks about it and Kraglin is loath to pry so he doesn’t ask.

(Maybe he should have.)

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Forgiveness is something Kraglin does not understand. As a Ravager, instead of absolution, arguments are settled by entering an uneasy truce while holding onto old slights and dredging them up whenever convenient.

Yondu forgives Quill.

Yondu forgives Quill too easily.

What starts with “he’s a kid, he don’t know any better” turns into Quill abandoning them and ends with him eventually cheating them out of the Orb, and Yondu is turning soft in a hard world.

Life is hard. Kraglin knows this. Yondu knows this better than anyone.

Quill does not know this.

Life chewed up Yondu and Kraglin, spit them out, made them hard and stern, cold steel under scarred and bruised flesh, but Yondu still coddles the kid, doesn’t kill him or maroon him on a distant planet even though he disrespects him and the Code at every opportunity.

(Yondu forgives Quill because he cannot forgive himself, and in the end, Kraglin believes that Yondu forgave him too easily, too.)

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

The official Ravager code dictates, among other things, that one must not steal from other Ravagers, hurt children or die without dignity.

The unofficial code is “steal from everyone.”

The even more unofficial code is “it’s all yours for the taking.”

So Yondu does. So Kraglin does. They want everything: units, jewels, baubles, planets, the stars, each other, so they reach and grab and  _taketaketake_ it all like greedy children. They go planetside to fuck in expensive hotels and gorge themselves on all the rich food and drink and make themselves ill and Kraglin can say things to Yondu that no one else can and he’ll steal a stupid trinket for Yondu and slip it in his pocket when he’s not looking.

“I think I’ll keep you,” Yondu purrs to Kraglin sometimes, and Kraglin thinks that’s fine because he’s never belonged anywhere or to anyone like Yondu, so he stays. Yondu’s hand searches for Kraglin’s in the darkness and Kraglin catches it ( _catch-as-catch-can_ ) and strokes a thumb over the scarred knuckles.

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere, sir,” Kraglin murmurs.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

They keep the Terran.

It doesn’t really surprise Kraglin that they do. They collected him from some rural-type area and then ran like hell to the other side of the galaxy. Yondu had toyed with the idea of leaving him with an orphanage but decided, rather last minute, to keep him.

“He’ll do good crawling into small places for us,” Yondu tells the crew when they ask, but Kraglin really knows that he doesn’t want to drop the kid off somewhere only for him to end up dead in an orphanage or sold into slavery or left on the streets to fend for himself. No use in protecting him from a murdering bastard if he ends up face down in a gutter on a some shitty Xandarian colony planet.

Besides, the kid is small and can fit into tight places no one else can, so it evens out, really.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Kraglin first meets Yondu when he’s washing blood off his hands.

It’s appropriate.

Yondu breaks into the fighters’ living quarters after witnessing one of Kraglin’s fights, putting the arrow through the eye of the poor sods Bohdan hired precisely to keep people like Yondu out. The water slices hot against the tender skin of Kraglin’s wrists as he scrubs Sneeper blood (a sort of muddy brown color) from his knuckles. The Sneeper had surrendered which meant he got to live to fight another day, which also meant no extra bowl of brown for Kraglin. He runs a hand over his face and scowls at his reflection on the filthy mirror.

“Don’t wash it off.”

The voice is raspy and low and Kraglin nearly falls out of his skin from shock when he hears it. He turns off the tap and whips around to see the imposing blue figure behind him. “What?”

“Don’t wash it off,” he repeats, and he grins. It’s a hot knife, half-gold and all dangerous, sharp and crooked. Kraglin wonders what kind of marks they’d leave. “I saw your fight. I wanna take you out. Have a nice meal and a chat.” (His for the taking.) “I got a proposition for you.”

Kraglin is too busy collecting his thoughts when Bohdan enters, furious. “Who are you?” he shouts at Yondu, his face purple with rage. “Why is my – ”

A sharp whistle cuts him off and the yaka arrow tears through his leg and he falls. Yondu looks at Kraglin and says very casually, “What do you wanna do with him?”

“What do you mean?”

Yondu twists the arrow between his fingers delicately, ignoring the blood. “You wanna let this bastard live after he cut that shit in your neck and made you live like this?”

Kraglin looks at Yondu. Yondu flashes him that wide grin, gold and danger and sharp teeth, full of promise of things to come.

Kraglin laughs.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Yondu has never been quiet but he goes damn near mute after he finds out what Ego has been doing to those kids. He still barks commands in his cocksure voice and swaggers along the flight deck with his coat flapping behind him like all is well but he doesn’t speak a word more than he needs and his face is dark and stormy, his mouth a thin, hard line and Kraglin doesn’t know what to say to him so he keeps his trap shut. He’s good at that. He sleeps in the common area with the others and curls around himself, hugging his knees to his chest like he did when he was small and sleeps lightly. He dreams of little hands turning to dust and bone, of fire, ash melting in his mouth, of an endless black sky with no stars.

He goes to Yondu’s cabin after a week and finds him sitting motionless at the foot of the bed. His shoulders are slumped, eyes downcast. He looks small, tired, defeated.

Broken.

Kraglin doesn’t know what to say, so he sits down behind Yondu and wraps his arms around him, pulling him close. Yondu lets him, leaning back against his chest and Kraglin strokes his shoulders and neck, kissing his head and face and Yondu closes his eyes, still silent.

After a few minutes under Kraglin’s gentle touches, Yondu rolls him onto his belly and fucks into him hard, biting the back of his neck until he bleeds and leaving bruises on his hips as he clings to him for dear life. The only sound Yondu makes is a low grunt when he comes, pushing Kraglin into the pillows and holding him there by pressing between his shoulder blades. He waits, catches his breath and clumsily reaches for Kraglin’s still-hard cock after but Kraglin brushes his hand away and brings himself off with a few quick tugs while Yondu stares vacantly at the ceiling. After, Kraglin holds Yondu’s head against his chest and soothes his callused fingers over his head until he falls into a fitful sleep, and Kraglin can’t give him the forgiveness or redemption or inner peace that he desires, but he can give him this.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

“I got a new job for us,” Yondu says once, almost as an afterthought.

They’re in a hotel on some planet Kraglin doesn’t remember the name of, but he thinks it was arid and cold, the air making his lungs hurt on inhale. They’re in a massive clean white tub full of sweet-smelling bubbles. There was an exotic floral arrangement on the table and fluffy towels and complimentary drinks. Kraglin is sitting between Yondu’s spread legs, his back to Yondu's chest, dozing and he stirs. “What is it?”

“You remember that Ego guy?”

Kraglin snorts. “Dude was a prick.” Yondu is absentmindedly running his fingers through Kraglin’s damp hair and Kraglin can feel his smile against his scalp.

“He was that. But he asked me to do him a favor. See, he’s got a kid over on Krylor and he wants me to pick her up and bring her back. Says he can’t do it himself. He’s wanted there or something. I wanted the dumb bastard to shut up so I didn’t ask for the details.”

This is the beginning of the end. Yondu does not know this. Kraglin does not know this.

“Sure, boss. How bad can it be?” Kraglin murmurs, and closes his eyes.

_How big is the sky?_

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Kraglin wakes early, just as one of the suns is peeking up over the horizon. The sky is streaked soft pink and purple and the sun is white-hot and too bright for hungover, bleary eyes but he watches it anyway. He missed looking at the sky. He’s stiff all over, a dull ache in his back and a raw pain in his ass, come and lube trickling down the inside of his thighs. He came too many times last night and he’s sore and dehydrated and bruised and clumsily gathers his clothes.

They're covered in blood and he grins, thinking of Bohdan and his screams and begging and tears. Killing him felt good and going to a nice hotel to fuck and get fucked by a random stranger felt better but it’s ending now, so he thinks it’s time to leave and he pulls on his shirt and trousers and thinks of where to go next. He could try an honest job, or he could go back to picking pockets or mugging off-worlders. Waiting tables is probably less dangerous and he learns quick. He could do it, he figures. Too many thoughts run through his head as he stumbles to the door and he stubs his toe on a footstool.

Yondu stirs in the massive bed behind him, mumbling and removing his arm from where it had been flung over his eyes. “Where’re you going?” he rasps. “’s too early.”

“I thought – I didn’t – Did you want me to stay?” Kraglin asks, feeling small and stupid.

Yondu sits up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Kraglin stares at his chest, at the tattoos and scars and he wants to touch him again, feel the raised skin under his palms. He’s covered in bites the size of Kraglin’s mouth, the deepest on his neck. “Oh, that’s right,” Yondu says, suddenly all business. “Got so caught up in your son of a bitch buddy and coming here and fuckin’ each other’s brains out, I didn’t tell you my proposition.” He picks up the datapad for room services and begins perusing it while talking. “Saw your fight. I bet one hundred units on you. If you'd lost, we wouldn't be havin' this conversation. Reason I’m on this fuckin’ planet is because a job we just did went tits up and we’re lookin’ for new blood. Figured no better place to find that than in some of the less savory places, such as that arena you was in. Want breakfast? No, forget it, I’m ordering for you. Look like you haven’t eaten in years.” He goes quiet for a moment, placing the order and looks back up at Kraglin. “So, how’s it sound?”

Kraglin blinks. “Huh?”

Yondu leans forward in bed and grins at him. “Bein’ a Ravager, kid.”

Kraglin has heard stories about Ravagers. Murderous thieves, the lot of them, he’d heard. (But then again, so is he.) There’s no way it can be worse than living in a cell, transported from his tiny locked room to arena to back with nothing but his thoughts and a bowl of brown to comfort him. “Would we live here on Xandar?” he asks, voice quiet.

“Here?” Yondu snorts, now looking for something to watch on the ‘net. “Fuck no. We’d live on the ship - the _Eclector_. Why? You got an attachment to somethin’ here? Mama, papa? A sweetheart?”

Kraglin just shakes his head. “I don’t got nothin’ here. Wanna leave this shithole. I just wanted to make sure if I took this job, I'd get to do that.”

Yondu puts the pad aside, gestures for Kraglin to come to the bed, and Kraglin does, peeling off his shirt and trousers in the process. He crawls under the covers and lets Yondu take his face between his big hands, kissing him and pulling him back down to the soft mattress. He thinks of escape, of belonging, of an endless sky filled with an infinite number of stars and possibilities.

When he bites Yondu’s neck, teeth scraping over his pulse, Yondu chuckles. He reaches down and grabs Kraglin’s thighs, pulling him onto his lap. “Yeah, I like you, boy,” he growls. “Think I’ll keep you.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [laughing with a mouth of blood - fanmix](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13165251) by [lazaefair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazaefair/pseuds/lazaefair)




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